Stipulations are highly favored by the courts because they promote judicial economy and provide litigants with predictability.1 They give the parties freedom to “chart their own course” of litigation, as long as the “course is not unreasonable or against good morals or public policy.”2 “Constitutionally secured rights as well as those evinced by positive act of the legislature may validly be waived [in a stipulation] without offending public policy…,”3 and no stipulation entered with the assistance of counsel will lightly be cast aside.4
One might expect the strong policy favoring stipulations to result in relatively liberal standards to make such agreements, but the opposite is true, as we see in CPLR 2104. Enforceable stipulations are limited to agreements between counsel in open court; agreements reduced to the form of an order and entered; and agreements “subscribed” by a party or their attorney.
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